


You've Got A Second Chance (You Could Go Home)

by hephaestiions



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Getting Back Together, HP Next Gen Fest 2020, Harry Potter Next Generation, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Love Confessions, M/M, Minor Ginny Weasley/Blaise Zabini, Not Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Compliant, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Past Relationship(s), Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27160471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hephaestiions/pseuds/hephaestiions
Summary: “What about James?”James, dear Merlin, not James, not again. His boy, his son, the brightest star in the constellation of Harry’s patchwork family, not him.“I think he’s relapsed.”–They tried this when James was nineteen and Teddy was twenty five. It crashed and burned. Teddy ran away to Finland and James... well Teddy's about to find out what happened to James, now that he's back two years later.
Relationships: Teddy Lupin/James Sirius Potter
Comments: 24
Kudos: 121
Collections: Next Gen Fest 2020





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story deals with certain extremely sensitive issues as is evident hopefully from the tags and the description. Everyone's personal struggles with addiction and recovery are different and it isn't my intention to misrepresent or demean anybody's journey. Everything I have written about comes from research and my own personal experience. I have tried to steer clear of harmful stereotypes or media biases that exist surrounding the subject. I hope I've been successful.
> 
> This was my first time writing Teddy/James and Next Gen as a whole, so I hope you are kind to my characterisations. They have been very kind to me. I leave you with this piece of my heart and I fervently hope that you enjoy it, and that the depth of the regard they have for each other reaches you too.
> 
> This was written for Prompt #S46 of the 2020 HP Next Gen Fest, the precise wording of which was: Teddy's afraid James has an addiction. He turns to the only person who he trusts to help: his godfather. I chose it because of the opportunity to explore Harry's relationships with the next generation besides the opportunity to explore their relationships among themselves.
> 
> I would like to thank my beta and the wonderful mods of this splendid fest for making this fic possible and for keeping up with my eccentric writing habits. 
> 
> The title is from Medicine by Daughter, a song that has played on repeat through the writing process of large chunks of this fic.

“I need to talk to you,” Teddy says, smile plastered on convincingly for any errant eyes watching, but eyes sharp and serious to the point where a spike of alarm surges through Harry. 

They’re in the Atrium, Harry having just finished his second training session with the new Auror recruits– fledglings with wide eyes for whom the shiny exterior of the Saviour hasn’t quite chipped away yet– freshly showered and aching to go home. 

Teddy rounded up a particularly grim case involving little children and drug dealers– the details of which Harry doesn’t like to dwell on outside of absolute necessity– today afternoon and Harry had given him and his partner the day off when they’d shown up in his office exhausted and dead on their feet claiming they had the ringleader incarcerated in the Ministry cells. 

Given the way Teddy’s usually vibrant hair had been dull brown and lanky, Harry hadn’t expected to see his godson’s face till at least the next morning. And yet, here Teddy is, with hair a sober blond given his affinity for electric blue, eyes flickering between hazel and green, looking for all the world as though he’s here to pay his godfather a good-natured visit. 

Only the years of experience Harry has in deciphering Teddy’s expressions allow him to look beneath the mild mannered facade to where whatever he has to say is scrabbling at his nerves. He’s twisting his fingers into the fabric of the hoodie he’s wearing– one of James’, Harry notes with a raised eyebrow– and his eyes are darting all around them as though wary that some eavesdropper is lying in wait. 

Given who they are, it’s not unlikely. 

Despite the trepidation pooling in his stomach, Harry drapes an arm around Teddy’s shoulder, (made only slightly inconvenient by the fact that somewhere along the line Teddy grew into an absolute giant) and says in a voice as cheery and normal as he can make it, “Why don’t we go to mine?” 

Teddy nods once, sharp and jerky. Someone behind them exclaims, “Lupin! Heard you wrapped up Montgomery today, well done lad!” 

With practiced ease, Teddy turns and smiles, raising a hand in acknowledgement. “Can we leave before someone else decides to start a detailed conversation about the case?” he asks under his breath, low enough that only Harry catches it. His fingers are digging sharply into Harry’s biceps, his whole body taut with tension even as he keeps his expression as neutrally pleasant as possible. 

Without answering, Harry tightens his grip on Teddy’s shoulder and all but drags him in the direction of the Floo, uneasiness churning and dark shadows looming at the edges of his mind. _Is someone sick? Ron or Hermione– Ginny, shit– his fucking kids–_

The endless possibilities of accidents and death and terminal diagnoses swirl in the dark cesspools of his thoughts until his peaceful mood is a roiling mess of nausea and anxiety. His entire body thrums with pent up frustration and the edges of his vision are turning blurry. Only when they’re both standing in the living room of his apartment, him looking expectantly at Teddy and Teddy looking down at the hardwood floors, does Harry realise he’s been holding a breath for longer than can be considered healthy.

“What’s wrong?” 

There’s no point beating about the bush. Teddy wouldn’t appreciate it and Harry doesn’t have the time. If something is wrong, he needs to know and he needs to know _now_. 

Teddy looks away and sighs. He fixes his eyes on the photograph Harry keeps above the fireplace of James, Albus, Lily and Teddy in their Quidditch gear and says, “James.” 

The air turns sour in Harry’s lungs. This, this had been his worst fucking fear. Because he already knows what Teddy will say but can’t help but ask, driven by the thin ray of hope that suggests perhaps his mind is a little too paranoid, his Auror instincts have been trained to be prepared for the very worst. 

“What about James?” 

James, dear Merlin, not James, not _again_. His boy, his son, the brightest star in the constellation of Harry’s patchwork family, not him. 

_Not again._

Teddy’s flickering eyes shut and the breath he draws in is deep, almost suffocating. But somewhere, somehow, it’s steadying– Harry almost envies him, because nothing about his own choked off breaths feels steady– because when Teddy opens his eyes again, they’re fixed on a warm hazel and shining with worry and determination. 

“I think he’s relapsed.” 


	2. Chapter One

By the time Teddy wraps up the Montgomery case, he’s quite sure he can go a lifetime without hearing the name of another drug. 

Robsertson’s signing off on the papers littered across their desk, putting his flourished signature on parchment that bears Montgomery’s startlingly mundane name– Albert Montgomery, he could be a Ministry clerk, for fuck’s sake– and when Teddy sighs he looks up. Something of Teddy’s plagued and haunted thoughts must be visible on his face because Robertson immediately grimaces and turns away.

“Don’t think about it,” he says, shaking his head as though it’s that easy to rid his mind of the constant whirlpool of nagging images that Teddy wants to bleach from memory. “Merlin knows I’m not.” 

“Fuck, I can’t just– I can’t just not,” Teddy says, tapping his fingers on the wood of his chair. “Man, I keep fucking seeing the kid, with the damn _ribs–_ “

“Lupin, _don’t._ ”

“Sorry,” Teddy sighs again, biting his lip and feeling a little guilty for the haunted light that reenters Robertson’s dark eyes. “It’s right fucking disgusting, is all.” 

“Tell me about it,” his partner says, shaking his head. “If this shit had gone on a couple more days, I’d be handing in my resignation.” 

Teddy can sympathise. He’d been on the verge of it himself, torturing himself on every off moment and with every dead end and false lead with the imagined consequences of their failure. 

He’d been a lot closer in his imagination to the horrifying reality than he’d ever in his wildest dreams thought he’d be. 

Merlin’s saggy left testicles, the man had been… 

_Kids._

“Perks of being the godson’s partner is that Harry gave us the day off,” Robertson teases after a beat of silence in a weak attempt to lighten the acidic mood. Teddy huffs, clinging to the opening like a lifeline. 

“He didn’t give me the day off because of that, you ponce. Morgana knows we fucking earned it.” 

“I know, I know, he gave it because we’re damn good Aurors and we had to watch a maniac drug a bunch of kids, but I like to pretend there’s at least some benefits to having to hear your annoying voice in my ear all day,” Robertson says, wryly. Teddy laughs. He’d be a fool to not recognise Robertson as an excellent partner, as would Robertson himself. They work well together, on and off the field. It’s particularly helpful that Robertson’s wife likes him well enough to supply enough food on their stakeouts and long nights in the office for two. It also helps that he has more experience on the field and ten years on Teddy, which means their magical compatibility doesn’t stop Teddy from tapping into the potential for learning that an experienced partner provides. 

He winces at the mental wording of his thoughts, at the way the connotations edge a little too close to the argument eighteen year olds usually put up when they begin dating someone in their forties. Which– well. That line of thought treads dangerously close to what Teddy has classified in his own mind as, ‘FRAGILE, DO NOT TOUCH’. 

“You think the kids will be okay though?” Robertson asks after a while, blissfully oblivious to Teddy’s current train of scandalous thought. 

Teddy breathes out through his nose, the picture of glassy eyed children painted behind his eyelids, etched permanently for a lifetime’s worth of nightmares. He can’t even imagine the sort of nightmares the kids will go through. 

“Harry’s going to personally make sure they go to rehab and shit,” Teddy says, worrying his lip between his teeth, trying to stick to the positive end of the volatile spectrum of thoughts. He doesn’t completely succeed when he tacks on, “But do you ever get over shit like that?” 

Because it’s true. Because Teddy, if he shuts his eyes tight enough, can remember Andromeda’s black robes and Harry, younger and angrier and dressed in unforgiving darkness at a funeral of two people he was supposed to know but didn’t because a megalomaniac with a penchant for destruction and domination decided his legacy was to be a senseless war. He doesn’t know how much of those memories are constructed from the letters and stories and how much is actually his brain holding onto fragments of visions, but he knows it still haunts him. And he’d been a month old. 

The children they dragged out of Montgomery’s den are older– the youngest is six and the oldest eight. They’ll remember for the rest of their lives. 

“Guess not,” Robertson says, stretching his hands up behind his head. Teddy sees his own dark circles mirrored on Robertson’s face. “But like, we’ll be able to check for signs in others now. For the drugs. From the research we did, you know? Not all of it has to be for this one case and the nightmares that are going to come with it.” 

The comment takes him back– 

Back to white hospital walls and a smile so manic that it was less a smile and more a snarl, to Harry’s tears and Ginny’s blank stare, to torn clothes and more blood than Teddy ever imagined he would be able to stomach the sight of on the body of someone he loved so dearly. 

He doesn’t tell Robertson that he can already check for signs, that he learnt, that one of the reasons this case has run so deep for him is because he remembers the fucking signs all too well. 

_Teddy, I won’t give you the case if you can’t handle it_ , Harry had said, holding up a hand to stall Teddy’s indignant responses when the file had landed on Harry’s desk and Teddy and Robertson had been the only Aurors competent enough to take it. _I know you’re a damned good Auror but you and I both know why this case can hit a little too close to home. I don’t want you getting fucked up for the sake of shit we buried years ago._

_Don’t you get it?_ Teddy had asked Harry. _That’s the reason I need to take it._

Robertson checks the papers, grimaces at the notes he’s had to make and stands, twisting his body to rid it of kinks. “I need to sleep for a fucking week,” he says. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” 

Teddy’s all too glad to comply. 

He doesn’t know what inspires him to change his mind from going back home, to the little apartment in Muggle London that he rents to showing up on James’ doorstep on Diagon. 

Or perhaps he knows a little too well and doesn’t want to dwell on it. 

Either way, he’s got his hand wrapped around a knocker below the nameplate reading, _James S. Potter_ and his heart is clenching something fierce. Him and James– it’s complicated, more complicated than it should be, but James is a beacon, a magnet, a light in the darkness and right now, Teddy can’t imagine being anywhere but in James’ orbit. 

Once upon a time, James would be willing to give him more than that, but right now– right now, whatever he does give will be enough. Because drugs and children and glassy eyes and danger strike too close to the vulnerable parts of Teddy’s memories of James. Because he needs to make sure James is solid and real and still breathing and still alive. 

Because Teddy won’t be able to deal with finding James… like that, again.

There’s a crash from within, undoubtedly James crashing into furniture. For a man so graceful on a broom, James is quite literally the clumsiest individual on solid ground. James’ native land is the open sky and that wild, beating heart behind the facade of his sneers and glares is more bird than human. 

A couple muffled curses later, the door is swinging open to reveal James, dishevelled and heavy eyed in sleep shorts and a muscle shirt, hair knotted messily into a bun above his head. 

He’s really rather beautiful, even like this. 

“Teddy?” He sounds confused, unprepared, as though when he’d been crashing into coffee tableson his way to the door and muttering about the picture frames being ungrateful motherfuckers, Teddy had been the last person on his mind. Irrational petulance surges in Teddy’s chest that he tamps down with gritted teeth. James couldn’t have known. To show up on his doorstep unannounced and be angry with him for confusion is a special brand of rude that Teddy isn’t comfortable with adopting. 

“Yeah,” he sighs, looking down at his feet, petulance replaced alarmingly fast with crippling insecurity. James probably doesn’t want him here, he looks tired, he’d probably been sleeping. Teddy shouldn’t stake a claim to James’ time out of some false sense of entitlement that he has no right to. “I just… it’s been an exhausting day at work, and we just wrapped a case up, and I thought–“ 

“Montgomery,” James drawls, eyebrows sliding up. “You wrapped up Montgomery, didn’t you? And so you’re here.” 

“I– yes–“ Teddy begins, too surprised to be articulate. “Yeah, I, yeah, it was Montgomery. And– well, fuck, how’d you know what case I was working?” 

Something about the comment catches James off guard. It takes Teddy a minute to reconsider his wording and he catches on at the same time that James ducks his head just enough for it to look exhausted to an outsider but tinged with embarrassment to Teddy. 

What case I was working. He could have asked how James knew who Montgomery was. But he didn’t and he asked it as though he expects James to know because James keeps tabs on _him_ and not drug dealers.

Well, if those two are James’ options, Teddy would prefer it be him anyway. 

“Dad was talking about it to Al, and Al can’t keep his mouth shut,” James mutters, looking away. He shakes himself awake visibly and when he finally turns towards Teddy, there’s genuine warmth in his posture. “Come in,” he says with the abashed grin that Teddy has never been able to resist or deny. “Let’s see if I can make your shit day better.” 

– 

The inside of James’ apartment is just as Teddy remembers it from the last time he’d been here. For someone of James’ temperament, it’s uncharacteristically pristine, as though James is too afraid to touch his own belongings for fear of breaking them. It works out, Teddy guesses, because James never really grew out of Hogwarts, of learning to live the life of a dorm mate, the unacceptability of having your things all over the floor because that one annoying roommate would make it a point to hold your dirty underwear up in the common room to illustrate his point. 

James’ two bedroom apartment feels remarkably similar to a layover, a rest stop, somewhere to be in transition instead of allowing oneself to make it into a home. 

Teddy supposes James’ bedroom is more untidy. He tries not to linger on the thought– merely thinking about the words strung after each other, James and bedroom in the same sentence, in that order making his face flame red and hot– but in the brief moments he can’t stave off, his imagination runs wild with the little leeway he gives it. 

Rumpled sheets, a stack of takeaway boxes by the foot of the bed, a dirty vest lying at the foot of the door. Random pieces of Quidditch equipment. Perhaps a hastily folded bedspread. 

He knows what he’s doing– superimposing James’ side of his shared bedroom with Al at Grimmauld onto the space James now inhabits here. But Teddy used to spend his holidays in that bedroom and it’s difficult to separate James from memories of rumpled sheets and laughter as warm as summer sunshine. 

Sometimes Teddy marvels at his inability to move on. Other times, he calls himself pathetic and throws back a martini. 

He’s twenty seven years old and James is twenty one and he’s still– 

Merlin. 

Either way, he’s here now and James is puttering about in the little alcove that he calls a kitchen to make them some tea. After the day, the week, the fortnight he’s had, chasing down Montgomery’s errant leads, Teddy wishes he could ask for something stronger, but somehow asking for substances around James feels inherently wrong. 

James would scowl if he knew. _You don’t need to handle me with kid gloves_ , he’d say, voice harsh in the relative silence of the space. _I know where my limits are._

It’s interesting really, how Teddy’s exhausted body simultaneously yearns for something to take the edge of his stress off and coils at the revulsion of the thought of drugs or alcohol. He blinks, pressing his fingers to his temples. Tea’s going to do just fine. 

“Sugar?” James calls from the kitchen, and something in Teddy steadies. It’s a quirk of Teddy’s– some days he likes his tea with a spoonful of stirred in sugar, on other days he likes it black. Only the people he lets in to the closed off spaces around his heart know that his preferences are unknowable. The juxtaposition of being known as unknown strikes him as strangely comforting and he responds with a quick but happy, “No, thanks.” 

James remembers. James cared enough to hold on to the memories of Teddy pouting at Harry when he stirred in too much sugar on a no-sugar day. It had taken everyone in Teddy’s life years to adjust to the way he loves change, to the way its his only constant. Some days, Arthur Weasley would blink at him, unable to place the strange boy at the dinner table, a boy he’d never laid eyes on before. It had taken Grandpa Arthur years to adjust to the fact that Teddy could never stick to a single look, he didn’t just use his ability to change out his hair like his mother apparently used to. 

Teddy enjoys the way his whole body feels like a magical object and he finds it a colossal waste to be the same person everyday. 

But James– James could always tell. Even when he’d been a child with chubby cheeks and wide eyes, he’d been able to tell Teddy apart from everyone around him, even in the crowds of Diagon Alley. Out of everyone in the family, James was the one who understood how much Teddy needed change. 

Sometimes Teddy hopes that understanding extended to… everything else. That Teddy had been twenty four and terrified of being stuck, that he’d been twenty four and caught in winds he didn’t know how to control. 

He looks around, feeling uncomfortable in his own skin. Every time he’s left alone with James, he remembers why he avoids the situation at all costs. This time he doesn’t have a family gathering or obligatory party to blame it on, he’s here of his own accord because the sight of children hooked to experimental drugs on a madman’s table had reminded Teddy too much of James’ sixth year and his Dreamless Sleep problem. 

This time Teddy can’t blame his susceptibility to James’ gravitational pull on Harry’s pleading eyes or Ginny’s desperation or Molly’s disappointed face when he doesn’t show up for Sunday roast. The fallout of this cosmic mistake is on Teddy and Teddy alone. 

And yet, he doesn’t want to leave. Because seeing James standing and smirking and willing to make Teddy tea has somehow eased a part of Teddy that had been aching and writhing under the onslaught of revived memories. 

A clattering sound jolts Teddy out of the spiral he’s descended into. James is looking down at him, arms crossed over his chest, a cup of tea resting on the table between them. 

“Dad gave you the day off, didn’t he?” James asks. 

Teddy shrugs. 

James snorts, striding over and sinking into the couch beside Teddy, immediately reclining. “He’s always worried,” he says with his eyes closed. “About how much you’re sleeping. Says you work too hard.” 

Teddy frowns. There’s something… off about the conversation. Something Teddy can’t pinpoint but a feeling that sets his teeth on edge. Perhaps its the paranoia of facing James after dealing with a drug dealer. Perhaps its just Teddy’s sixth sense that goes into overdrive around this stupid fuck of a boy who doesn’t know what’s good for him. 

“Bit hypocritical, really,” James continues. “Mum holds up her ring finger every time he talks about someone else working too hard.” 

Ah yes, the divorce. James had been fifteen, Teddy twenty one. For James and Al and Teddy it had been a bolt out of the blue. For Lily, it had been a sad but inevitable conclusion. She’d been the only one at home long enough to see the way her parents were falling apart at the seams. Ginny still claims it happened because Harry couldn’t learn to balance his home and his job. Teddy thinks, and sometimes wonders if Lily secretly agrees, that Harry had stopped wanting to. 

Harry loved his children to the very core of his being. But Harry, Teddy knows now, from having first row tickets to the remarkably sad movie that is Harry’s dating life, has trouble being _in love_. He’d never needed to be in love with James or Al or Lily, loving them had been enough, had been more than enough. And he could do that just fine, he could love and he could give and he could sustain.

But then his children had left for Hogwarts and Harry and Ginny had been confronted by the reality of a failed marriage riding the coattails of enthusiastic children. Lily had been relieved when they’d finalised the divorce, Al a little confused and a little sad but accepting enough. James… James stopped talking to them both for a year. 

He started talking to them in his sixth year again, writing letters and making friends, and Harry and Ginny had wept tears of relief when the first owl had come bearing a letter, signed, _Love, James_. 

And then it had been tears of grief because apparently one of those friends had gotten James into Potions and James was abusing Dreamless Sleep at sixteen, on the verge of fatal dependency. Teddy still remembers being in the room when they’d received the panicked call from Hogwarts, McGonagall’s Cat Patronus unusually shaky as she told them James had to be rushed to Mungo’s due to an unfortunate _accident_ involving copious amounts of Dreamless Sleep and knives. 

There had been screaming, there had been guilt, there had been the taste of blood in Teddy’s mouth when he’d bitten down on his tongue too hard. There had been James’ letter, James’ accounts of new friends, James in a hospital gown, thrashing and screaming as his body went into painful withdrawal. 

James with red eyes, James with slurred speech– 

Teddy bites his tongue to swallow the unbidden gasp that threatens to spill from his mouth. Slurred speech. During his relapse after seventh year, a brief stint that had led to Harry firmly putting him back in therapy, James had been slurring all over the place, barely able to keep his thoughts together. 

And right now, he seems plenty put together, but Teddy knows James, knows his accent better than his own, knows the way James speaks. There’s an added edge to the speech that shouldn’t be there, and now that Teddy knows what to listen for, he hears it on every word. 

“So, Montgomery,” James says, and Teddy cringes at the way the vowels are a little too long, the consonants too soft. 

“Montgomery,” Teddy says carefully. “I don’t particularly want to talk about him.” 

“Dad wanted me to be an Auror,” James says eventually, opening one eye to look at Teddy. He’s too far away for Teddy to check his pupils, but now that he’s focusing, he notices the way the whites of his eyes are reddish, as though they’ve been rubbed raw. “If I’d done that, maybe I’d be helping you lock him up,” 

Teddy snorts. “You’re twenty one, they’d be locking themselves up if they put you on a case like this.” 

James shoots him an unimpressed look. “My casting is perfect, thank you very much.” 

Teddy swallows. There’s no denying the strange slur to his words now. 

“I’m a little cold,” Teddy says, abruptly. “Can I borrow a hoodie?” 

James gestures one lazy hand towards the bedroom. “Your wish is my command,” he says. 

“Ponce,” Teddy mutters. James grins. 

“For you,” he says, and Teddy feels himself flush to the tips of his ears, down his throat and to his chest. 

Without sticking around to respond, he flees to the relative sanctuary of James’ room. 

Which is when his ill advised thoughts about James’ bedroom surge like the rising tide in his chest, hot and heavy and all-consuming, until his senses are overwhelmed from the fact that he is _in James’ bedroom._

It looks almost like what Teddy expected it to– rumpled sheets and a couple abandoned garments here and there, an overstuffed wardrobe fit to bursting. It’s also not quite what Teddy expected at all, the walls lined with photographs– of James with Lily and Al, of one with Harry, another with Ginny, more with his Hogwarts friends. There are many with Teddy, some from childhood– James five and stained with chocolate, Teddy eleven and looking wearily fond. Teddy thirteen and beaming, James eight and staring at him with something awestruck and wondering in his eyes. 

_Oh, Jamie._

There’s more, of James in Quidditch gear, of James in bed from a photoshoot he apparently didn’t write home about for whatever reason, of scenery Teddy knows is from James’ year on the road after he left Hogwarts to catch a break from a world that seemed to be too heightened for him. 

The white of the walls is almost invisible, peeking through the gaps in photos. It’s in stark contrast to the bare, sparse furnishings of the living room and the other bedroom that James calls a guest bedroom with a lascivious smirk whenever anyone asks why he didn’t just get a studio apartment. 

Harry had rolled his eyes when James had said that. Ginny had smacked him on the head. Lily had fist bumped him and Al had made a disgusted sound. Teddy had blushed and stopped asking James about his apartment. 

The rest of the flat is underwhelming to the point where a visitor would think James was a glorified squatter. But the bedroom bursts with colour and memories and is so overwhelmingly Jamie, that Teddy can almost taste– 

No. He won’t go there. 

He’s here for– 

He opens the wardrobe, letting the irritation of having terribly folded clothes cascade all over him in a flurry settle and then wear off. Contrasted against Albus’ conscientious and meticulous maintenance of order, James is a slob, a whirlwind of chaos that cannot be bothered with the art of learning to fold a shirt so it doesn’t wrinkle. Teddy weeds through the haphazardly tucked away garments to find the hoodies, arguably preserved in the best condition, only slightly scrunched around the chest area. 

He pulls out the green Quidditch one that says POTTER on the back and tugs it on. Teddy’s taller but James is broader around the shoulders from whatever Quidditch regimen he’s kept on, so it fits comfortably. The strings, he notes with fondness aching in his bones, are chewed and frayed from James’ nervous tics. 

He’s about to shut the door when something flashes at the very back of the shelf. Teddy blinks and its gone. He figures its none of his business, but James’ odd slurring and Montgomery’s thin smile weasel their way back into his brain, echoing and overlapping until Teddy’s thoughts are a frayed mess. He turns back and waves his wand at the shelf, and the very back of it lights up red, revealing a Glamour. 

It’s not Teddy’s business, really. It’s not. But James is Glamouring apparently harbouring things in his bedroom which he feels the need to Glamour in a personal space. Casting a look towards the shut bedroom door, Teddy hesitates. 

He makes a quick decision– whatever it is, he won’t touch. Especially if its a diary or something equally personal. He just needs to know what, he doesn’t need to know more. That’s better than snooping, right? That’s… acceptable. 

Teddy doesn’t know who he’s trying to convince. 

So he waves his wand and the Glamour flickers bright red and blinks before falling away to reveal… Muggle money? Teddy stares in confused consternation. Muggle money isn’t something Wizards need regularly, but most of them have a stash for emergencies that they carry in their wallets just in case they step into Muggle London. For people like Teddy, it’s a permanent fixture given that he lives in Muggle London and potentially paying in solid gold coins doesn’t seem to be advisable when considering the Statute of Secrecy. 

But no Wizard stashes Muggle money under a Glamour charm. It doesn’t make sense. 

Teddy’s Auror senses are kicking into overdrive. Something is wrong here, something he can’t pick up on. James’ sluggishness, his slurring, Muggle money hidden in the wardrobe, behind piles and piles of criminally crushed clothes. James, constantly talking about Montgomery. 

Teddy feels queasy. _How’d you know what case I was working?_

He desperately wants to be proven wrong. Every warning bell is going off at once in his brain, every alarm ringing at the same time. He wants to shake Jamie out of his stupor, wants to call Harry, wants to panic. Wants to drag Jamie to Mungo’s and have him tested. 

But he draws in a deep breath, casts the Glamour again and steps out into the room, plastering a smile on his face that he hopes doesn’t look as close to the panicked grimace he can feel curling at the edges of his expression. “You need to learn to fold your clothes,” he says, looking towards the couch. The grin falls from his face. 

James is sleeping. 

His first instinct is to bury his hands in his hair and yank a few strands out in hopes of calming the waves of anxiety crashing through him. He knows from experience how completely useless that would be. Hands shaking, Teddy pulls out the cellphone from his pocket. Muggle contraption, but Aunt Hermione had been insistent they all get one. He’s never been more thankful for her proclivities to insist on a healthy balance between technology and magic. 

_To Al: When was the last time u spoke to Jamie?_

There’s no response for five minutes. He expects it– Al isn’t the most technologically savvy. Out of them all, he’s the likeliest to leave his cell at home. Teddy uses those five minutes to catalogue James’ sleeping form into his brain. The bruised circles beneath his eyes as though he hasn’t been sleeping. The pale, translucent quality of his skin. How much more tired he looks, now that he isn’t trying to hide it with raised eyebrows and cocky smirks. 

His phone buzzes against his thigh and he flips it open, heart caught in his throat. 

From Al: _Three days ago, I guess? Everything ok?_

Teddy swallows. 

To Al: _Were u drunk? What did u talk about?_

From Al: _Fuck no, wasn’t drunk. Don’t get drunk around him. What’s wrong?_

To Al: _Did u mention Montgomery to him?_

From Al: _Who?_

A sharp, bitter laugh lodges at the back of Teddy’s throat. The twisted part of him screams you knew this would happen. The part of him that is fine tuned to everything Jamie dredges up a memory of James screaming, _Stop fucking treating me like a china doll about to break. If you keep expecting me to relapse, I will, what’s so bloody difficult to understand?_

Because the only way James could have known about a Montgomery investigation, fuck it, about Montgomery at all, about the Aurors on his case would be if he had feelers out for drugs. The only people who had even an inkling of the shit Montgomery had been pulling had been other back alley dealers who didn’t dare step into Knockturn even at night.

Because it all matches up, the slurring, the sluggishness, the sleep. The pale skin and the red eyes and the stack of Muggle money hidden away. 

With shaking fingers, Teddy texts Al back: _I’m at his place but I need to head out. Can you come over to keep an eye on him?_

There’s no response for a while though Teddy’s sure Al’s read the message. But as he’s pulling his shoes on, his phone beeps insistently. One word and it’s enough for Teddy to catch his meaning, to taste the tension and apprehension that must be lodged in Al’s throat, the sheet incomprehensibility of being faced with these demons once more. 

From Al: _Again?_

Teddy sighs. There’s nothing to it except the truth. Al can handle it. 

To Al: _Probably._


	3. Chapter Two

Harry is remarkably calm about the revelation, given the way he’d been acting in the Atrium when Teddy had walked up to him, body coiled with tension and grim resilience. 

Now he sits down on the chaise longue in his dimly lit but artfully furnished living room to take his boots off. 

“So you won’t even say anything?” Teddy asks, wincing at the way the words come out laced in venom and accusation. Harry’s looking down at his boots, struggling with the laces that Teddy knows he always ties too tightly. “You’re just going to sit there– sit there and– and unlace your bloody _boots?_ ” The words coming out of his mouth make no sense, he’s halfway to mortified by them, but he can’t seem to stop. Harry’s affecting nonchalance and Teddy is seek to the bones with it. 

Harry looks up at him, hands stilling on the knots. “Would wearing James’ hoodie make me more palatable to you?” 

The words are casual, a little pointed, but they cut through Teddy like a knife through butter. Whatever adrenaline and anxiety has been fuelling his movements since he connected the dots in James’ bedroom leaves his body in a rush, and he feels fatigued, body throbbing with the exhaustion of the last few weeks. Something must be showing on his face because Harry’s gaze bordering on a mild glare softens enough for Teddy to remember that this man was the one who stepped into the shoes of a father Teddy never knew and did a remarkable job of almost never letting Teddy feel the loss. 

That he’s here not just because Harry is James’ father, but also because he’s Teddy’s godfather, the man who he came out to when he was sixteen and petrified, the man who bore the brunt of the Press in public to keep it off Teddy, the man who showed up for all of Teddy’s Quidditch matches and cheered for Hufflepuff though his eyes always lingered almost longingly on the Gryffindor banners. 

He’s here because Harry is his… Harry just as much as he’s James’ dad and because Teddy feels unmoored and there’s no other anchor Teddy knows to return to. 

“Come here,” Harry says, when the shame of his own words shatters into his stomach, guilt bruising the parts of him still unmarked by panic. “Sit down and breathe.” 

Teddy sits. Breathes. Drops his head onto Harry’s shoulder and tries his hardest to swallow down the lump lodged in his throat. They sit in silence, Harry’s arm around Teddy and Teddy listening to the way Harry’s pulse is racing in his throat. 

Sometimes Teddy forgets that Harry has been trained for decades to appear calm under pressure. That his collected mask isn’t always particularly accurate. That doling out judgement based on it isn’t fair. 

Harry holds the fort down so often that Teddy forgets he’s human too. 

“Sorry,” he says, because he hates hurting Harry. Because he knows Harry hates being hurt by him. “I’m just… stressed.” 

“Tell me about it,” Harry murmurs. “I’m still trying to… process.” 

This is something comparatively new in their relationship. When Teddy had been sixteen, seventeen, a little older, he’d grown accustomed to picking up cues about Harry’s state of mind from his body language. The furrow between his brows, the unconscious fists he bundled his hands into. But recently– or well, in the last two or three years, Harry has been loosening the tightly clasped reins a little, at least around Teddy. Sometimes he haltingly tells Teddy he has too much on his plate. Sometimes he mentions he misses having his kids around. Sometimes, at work, when they’re just Harry and Teddy commiserating over the difficulty of a case, Harry will say _I haven’t slept in two days_ and Teddy will blink and say _me neither_ and they’ll go get coffee. 

It’s… different. Teddy isn’t complaining. 

“I thought he was doing better,” Teddy says, staring at Harry’s boots. “I thought he’s been clean.” 

“Are you sure drugs is the only answer?” Harry asks. 

Teddy isn’t. Not factually, not objectively. Everything he’s noticed has been through the lens of an Auror who just wrapped up a drug bust. Through the lens of someone who’s seen James glassy eyed and high. Through the lens of… Teddy, and whatever that means when it comes to James Sirius Potter. 

“No,” he says. It comes out certain, it comes out steady. It doesn’t mask the way Teddy’s fingers tremble in his lap. 

“But it’s James,” Harry says, speaking into existence the unspoken elephant in the room. “So it probably is.” 

“That sounds so fucked up. Like we’ve been waiting.” 

“We haven’t,” Harry says immediately. Teddy raises his head and looks into the green eyes Harry is so famed for, a little startled by the vehemence. Harry looks fierce. He always does, when it comes to his family. “But I don’t think the same can be said for James.” 

“He wanted to get better,” Teddy says, uncomfortable with the insinuation. He remembers James in withdrawal, shuddering in his arms, soaked in sweat and tears, screaming for relief and screaming that he never wants to see a Potion again in his life. 

Remembers being twenty four and stupid and in love with the boy in his arms, collapsing under the weight of the consequences of relapse. 

Harry turns to look at him. “You think I don’t know that? That second time, he came to me. He _asked_ for therapy. He wanted to get clean and stay that way just as much as we wanted it for him. Fuck, Teddy, _listen to us_ , he probably wanted it far more than we can imagine.” 

There’s silence again. Neither of them know what to say, what to do, where to go. 

“You left him by himself?” Harry asks eventually, anxiety evident in his eyes. 

Teddy shakes his head. “Called Al over.” 

“Told him why?” 

Teddy shrugs. “He guessed.” 

Harry sighs. 

“We can’t just– we can’t just barge in to his house and ask him questions. That’s just… he’s going to get right defensive and start shouting, you know that, right?” 

“Why do you think I’m here in my house, sitting while I know my son is probably relapsing into addiction?” Harry asks, the dry undertone to his voice bitterly amused. “I know James, Teddy, I know what he’ll do if we stalk over there and tell him to come off it.” 

“He’ll tell us to go fuck ourselves.” 

“That’s putting it very, very mildly.” 

“What about Ginny?” 

Harry hesitates and looks down at his hands. From the way his left hand twitches, Teddy knows he’s staring at the lightened band of skin where a ring used to be. 

“Do you think I should tell her?” 

Teddy almost gasps with surprise. He hadn’t expected Harry to ask him whether he should tell his ex wife about their son’s resurgence of substance abuse. But, and Teddy almost laughs despite himself for forgetting, he’s a twenty seven year old adult. He has more experience than he had when he was seventeen and scowling about Harry not giving him a say in what to have for dinner. 

“I think she deserves to be kept in the loop rather than having to find out later,” he says. “It’s only fair.” 

Harry nods. “I’ll Floo her, she… she’s probably with Blaise, fuck, I just–” 

“Blaise cares about James,” Teddy reminds Harry. It’s one of the sore points between Harry and Ginny, that existence of Blaise Zabini in their lives. It’s been a sore point for the past three years, since Blaise went from, _Mum’s boyfriend_ to _Blaise in his own right_. Harry’s paranoid and mistrustful, Ginny is furious and bitingly sharp. But if Harry meets her halfway by telling her about James in front of Blaise, it’ll be a step forward. 

He _is_ twenty seven years old. Fuck. 

Harry nods. “Stay here?” 

“Of course,” Teddy says, curling his fingers into the soft material of his– James’ hoodie. Hunching over, he inhales deeply– the scent of woodsmoke and pine and the hint of James’ detergent filling his senses. 

If Harry notices when he gets up to reach for the Floo Powder, he doesn’t comment. 

– 

Ginny, to her credit, takes the news with the stoic calm that Teddy has always appreciated in her. He’s seldom seen Ginny lose her temper, and the fact that she used to lose it so often around Harry in those last few months of their marriage is perhaps testament to how out of sync they’d gotten. 

But when it comes to James, they forget about the differences and the arguments and the difficulties. 

“Are you sure?” Ginny asks, voice distorted through the Floo. 

“No,” Teddy says. 

“But probably,” Harry adds. 

From what they can see of Ginny’s face in the fire, she agrees. 

“What do we do?” Harry asks. He sounds almost plaintive, like a little boy asking for a solution. He sees the stark lines around Ginny’s eyes soften as she registers Harry’s voice, sees the way she ducks forward and then aborts the motion as though she’d reached out through the Floo to touch Harry and then thought better of it. 

“I don’t know,” Ginny says. And then carefully adds, “But I know someone who might.” 

Teddy feels Harry stiffen beside him. From the way Ginny’s face has gone pinched and her mouth is a thin line, it’s probably– 

“Blaise struggled with substance abuse too,” Ginny says quietly. “He’s been there. I think, I think he might be able to help.” 

Harry’s face is dark, storm clouds of conflict and worry passing over the drawn tightness of his face. “Fine,” he mutters eventually, bowing his head. 

From Ginny’s surprised intake of breath, Teddy can tell he’s not the only one who’d been expecting a different reaction. 

“I can… tell him?” Ginny asks, surprised and a little confused. Suddenly, she too sounds like a little girl, lost and confused and looking for a simple solution that doesn’t exist. 

Harry’s head jerks up, and he frowns. “Gin, I– of course you can tell him. I thought he must already know.” 

Ginny shakes her head. “He does, but not, not all of it, not really. He knows James had– James had trouble and that he went to rehab, but I never really–” 

Harry looks sad, the light of the fire casting shadows across his face. “You– I– Gin, I don’t like him, but I don’t– I don’t ever want you to not do something because I– Gin, you trust him and I trust you. If you think he can know, he can know. You don’t– fuck, you don’t need my _permission._ ” 

Ginny’s eyes flicker shut. When she opens them, she fixes them on Teddy. “I’m coming through,” she says, voice brooking no hesitation. “And I’m bringing Blaise with me.” 

Fifteen minutes later, they’re sitting in Harry’s living room, Teddy slouching in an armchair, Blaise relaxed on the chaise longue and Ginny sitting rigidly on the other end of it. Harry’s on the floor, knees under his chin. There’s silence. 

Blaise breaks it with, “So, James, yes?” 

“James,” Teddy agrees, clinging to the conversation like a lifeline. 

“Can you tell me more?” He asks Teddy. 

Teddy startles a little. “You– I– I thought they would be better–” 

“No,” Blaise says immediately. “They’re his parents. You are…?” 

Teddy flushes pink. _God-brother_ sounds wrong to his ears after… everything. That is technically what he is, but using brother to define any aspect of their relationship feels inherently discordant. 

“His… um. His best friend,” he says for lack of a better term. “Or I was at least. Once.” 

Blaise’s perfectly arched eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. 

Teddy shrugs. “What do you want to know?” 

“Everything,” Blaise says with a shrug. “They call this a relapse, yes? When did it start?” 

It feels wrong to be telling Blaise, like an invasion of privacy. It feels like something James should be talking about, not Teddy. So he does the best he can to– 

“I’ll tell you what I saw,” Teddy says, phrasing carefully. Blaise’s smile is one of approval, bright and less sarcastic than the ones Teddy is used to seeing from him. _He’s probably had enough of well-meaning idiots assume where he was when he went through whatever he did._ “He– well. He was in his sixth year. And we all knew he’d taken the divorce– uhm– quite, uh, terribly. He didn’t write home for months, he was… uncommunicative. But then he– he seemed to get better. He started conversations again, he seemed to laugh more. He wasn’t really– well, he wasn’t really our Jamie, not the one we knew from before, but he was there. Present. Always. Relaxed and a little laid back, and he made a whole bunch of new friends. Al and Lily seemed to think he was doing okay. I visited a couple times and he was doing okay, better than okay. Joking, even. About… uh. Stuff.” 

It’s awkward, discussing these things in front of Harry and Ginny, who seem to be locked in a stare-off. It’s different from the way they constantly avoid looking at each other in all other social settings, especially the Burrow where Molly still makes them sit next to each other. They’re friends, but barely. Right now though, they’re broken parents trying to find comfort in each other’s understanding. Teddy’s heart aches.

He swallows and continues, “And then he began writing to me about things he’d– things he’d done. Crazy stunts on the pitch that could have killed him if he hadn’t pulled them off. Skinny dipping in the Great Lake. Things he– he was a Prefect and he’s always been reckless but not like– not like this. And honestly, we all thought he was just… living up to his name. Going back to the legacy or whatever, he was… doing okay. We all thought…” 

The memories and flashbacks are dancing in the flickering flames of the fire, in the haunted look in Harry’s eyes, in the shape of Ginny’s rigid spine. 

“But then, one evening we got a Patronus from McGonagall. I was with Harry, we were going over a case. Ginny was supposed to visit in the evening with Ron and Hermione for dinner. But McGonagall’s Patronus came and she… they said he’d been rushed to Mungo’s. Because he’d been… abusing Dreamless Sleep. There were knives involved. When he woke up… he said he hadn’t wanted to die, just wanted to see how far it would go.” 

Blaise looks sad. Now that he does, Teddy recognises how little of the man’s emotions are usually on display. He’s always shut away, he’s always crisp. Right now, he looks human. Teddy can almost see what Ginny must see when _she_ looks at him.

“He went… to rehabilitation?” 

“Yes,” Harry interjects, voice hoarse. “For the summer. He didn’t go back to Hogwarts that year. We sent him to Cherry Hills for three months. He came back looking all pale and shivery but he was… he was clean.” 

Blaise nods. “And he has relapsed since then?” 

“Once,” Teddy says. “That we know of, at least. He was eighteen and stuff was difficult, his Quidditch team wasn’t utilising him and everyone kept calling him Potter’s son and it was shit for him. He started doing that unicorn horn drug that was new– the one Kingsley got banned. Harry sent him back to Cherry Hills. He came back better.” 

Ginny’s silent on her end of the chaise. Blaise looks towards her and extends an arm, and she subconsciously leans towards it before her eyes drift to Harry’s and her shoulders hunch. 

Harry closes his eyes. When he opens them, they’re shiny. “You’re your own person, Gin,” he says. 

There’s a brief conversation held through eyes and head tilts and flared nostrils that Teddy doesn’t understand but results in Ginny curling into Blaise’s side and him resting his head on top of hers. It’s unexpectedly sweet. From the way Harry’s eyes grow wistful instead of angry, he agrees. 

“We need to clear his stashes,” Blaise says into the ensuing silence of the room. “Drive it out of him, make him tell us his sources, tell us where he keeps things hidden. Cast _Revelio_ , if need be. I am not saying your Jamie is untrustworthy, but drugs make you do things you wouldn’t. He needs to accept that this isn’t feasible. He needs to go to therapy and remain there, not leave every time he thinks he’s under control. The cravings they–” Blaise inhales. “They seem stupid to think about when you’re not having them. You think oh man, what an idiot I was. Why would I want that? The headaches, the nausea, the guilt? And then they hit you one day out of nowhere when you see your ex in a coffee shop and every part of you is screaming with the urge to just forget, just not be yourself. And you think– you think it’s just one time to help you cope and suddenly you’re halfway down the hole that you dragged yourself out of the last time you thought one time would help you cope.” 

They’re quiet in the aftermath of that revelation. It makes too much sense.


	4. Chapter Three

Harry and Teddy show up at James’ door the next day, clad in Muggle clothes. Teddy’s wearing cargo shorts and a collared t-shirt, Harry’s wearing jeans and a polo with his hair tied up and out of his face. They both look more tired than they should after only one sleepless night. 

“I’m glad I gave you the case,” Harry mutters as they stare at the oak of James’ heavy door without knocking. “I don’t think I would have been able to notice.” 

“I didn’t want to,” Teddy says. “And it felt so wrong to– to do that. To stare at him as though I’ve been waiting for the signs, as though now that my memory is brushed up on how child addicts look, I’m waiting to superimpose that image on James.” 

Harry exhales. Raises his hand and raps on the door three sharp times. It opens a few seconds later, a haggard Al in the doorway. He seems to sag in relief when he sees them. 

“He’s sleeping,” Al says in lieu of a greeting. “He saw me in here instead of Teddy last night and checked on his little stack of cash, found everything in place but–” He gestures inside. “Come and see.” 

They step into a warzone. The coffee table has been overturned, shattered china all over the floor. There’s clay everywhere from the remnants of a shredded plant lying in one corner. There’s glass too and when Teddy finds the broken framed photo of himself and James lying abandoned against the doorway to the bedroom, his heart breaks. 

“He’s angry,” Al says, rubbing a hand over his face. Of the three Potter siblings, he’s the one who resembles Harry most acutely in looks and mannerisms. Right now, pale and drawn, he looks like Harry did in the few pictures Teddy has of his own father with a younger Harry. 

All three of them love their father something fierce but Al was the one who held onto Harry the longest, the one who still turns to him in the same way Teddy does. So when he buries his face in his father shoulder and simply shakes, Harry’s arms immediately wrap him up, holding him close. 

“He’ll be okay,” Harry murmurs into Al’s ear. “He’s Jamie, he’ll be fine.” 

Al nods, a jerky, nervous thing half hidden by the way he’s pressed himself into the crook of Harry’s neck but Teddy sees it and Harry feels it, and father and son take whatever comfort they can in each other. 

When Al draws away and looks at him, Teddy notices the red rims around his eyes. “When I got here, he was sleeping,” Al says. “But when he woke up, he looked so– he looked so young. And he asked for you, all confused and wanted to know if you were going to stay.” 

“Al, I–” 

“Teds, please,” Al says. “He didn’t just ask if you were going to stay, he said, _Teddy will you stay this time?_ And then he saw me, and you should have fucking seen his face. It’s James, Teddy, and James never– James never looks like that.” 

“I never left him,” Teddy says, though the words sound sour in his mouth. “I never wanted to–” 

“You left us _all_!” Al screeches. “One day you’re here and James is all smiley and happy, looking like he’s been handing the bloody constellations, and the next you’re in Finland _because you asked Dad for a transfer!_ And he gave it to you!” 

“Was I supposed to know?” Harry asks. “Was I supposed to know that James and Teddy were– James only told me three months after Teddy left, was I supposed to know Al? I would have never– I would have talked some sense into Teddy, I wouldn’t–” 

Teddy looks between them, heart skittish and rabbiting. “Know what?” He’s terrified of the answer that’s going to come out of their mouths, terrified of a truth he’s been denying, but before either of them can open their mouths, the door to the bedroom is swinging open and a dry, sarcastic, hoarse voice says, “That I am a pathetic fool in love with you, Teddy, what else?” 

He says James’ name before he’s processed the words. Jamie looks terrible, as though he hasn’t eaten for days, hasn’t slept for more, as though he’s less wizard and more apparition. And then the words make their way into his brain, embed themselves into his core, twist and turn their way into his veins and his magic and his heart and he snaps his mouth shut. 

“James, I, that was two years ago.” 

James nods. He doesn’t seem inclined to proceed. “Is this an intervention?” he asks baldly. “I would like some eggs before the lecture, please.” 

Harry speaks before Al or Teddy have an opportunity to respond. “It is an intervention, you’re right. And Albus will make you eggs in the kitchen I notice you have avoided absolutely destroying. Meanwhile, you will abstain from sitting and sulking on your couch and tell us where precisely you’re keeping substances in this house so that I can vanish them. After we’re done, you’re going to tell Teddy where to find your contacts so that he can take care of them.” 

Jamie’s mouth has dropped open. He snaps it shut with a scowl and a snarl once he realises Harry isn’t going to continue or retract. “Why the fuck–” 

“Language,” Harry interrupts, mildly. 

James bursts into hysterical laughter. “You’re standing here,” he says, once he’s in better control, “In my living room which I decided to go at with everything I had when I was high and realised Teddy has discovered that little tidbit, staring at your drug-addicted, constantly relapsing failure of a son and the one thing you can think to reprimand me about is my bloody language?” 

Harry blinks at him. James blinks back. Al sighs and moves towards the kitchen. Teddy fidgets, uncomfortable and mind whirling with Jamie’s inopportune confession. 

“My son who is abusing substances because he refuses extended therapy,” Harry says after a beat. 

“What?” 

“You called yourself by drug-addicted, constantly relapsing failure of a son. I’m telling you you’re my son who is abusing substances because he refuses extended therapy.” 

“I’m not here to be patronised, Dad–” 

“I’m not patronising you,” Harry interrupts. “I’m telling you what I think of you.” He moves closer to Jamie, who Teddy is beginning to realise positively reeks of stale breath and stale air. Harry seems undeterred. “I’m telling you that before anything else, James, you are my son, my boy, and no matter how many goddamn times you make me call Cherry Hills, that is the first thing you will be to me.” James looks so startled that Teddy wonders if he’d genuinely thought Harry would give up on him. Stupid boy. Stupid Jamie. 

“You’re my son, and I fucking love you James,” Harry says, and his voice comes out scraped raw. “So you can get high on whatever, on Dreamless or unicorn horn or bezoar extracts or whatever the fuck, and I will be hurt and I will cry but you will never be a failure. Not as long as you keep fighting. Not as long as you don’t just succumb.” 

Teddy watches the slow progression of James’ false bravado crumbling. First his eyebrows twitch, then his lips turn down. His eyes flutter and his nose swivels and suddenly every one of his handsome features run ragged by sleeplessness and whatever he’s been putting into his body are fluctuating between a tremulous smile and abject and total grief. 

“Dad,” he says, and his voice is so shaky. “Dad, I, I was doing okay. Dad I, I don’t want to be here.” 

He’s shaking where he stands, gripping the doorframe in a white knuckled grip. Harry’s arms are crossed over his chest and his face is unreadable. 

“Jamie, can I touch you?” Harry asks. 

He nods. 

Harry reaches out, arms outstretched, and Jamie hesitates for a second before he steps into the circle of the embrace, letting himself melt into his father’s hug. It’s sweet in a heartbreakingly innocent way and neither of them are saying anything but with the way Harry’s gripping his son, it’s almost as though he’s holding him up. 

“We can sit,” Harry says. “Let’s sit, yeah?” 

James nods and Teddy watches as Harry drags James over to the couch and sits down, letting James’ ginger head thud onto his shoulder.

“I love you too much to ever think of you as a fucking failure, Jamie,” Harry says. Albus, who’d been carrying a plate of eggs from the kitchen to the sofa, falters. 

“Language, Dad,” James says and the tentative spell keeping them apart breaks. 

Harry huffs a laugh and James lets himself smile and Teddy relaxes against the wall. Albus slams the plate of eggs down on James’ lap and towers over him, arms crossed and expression dark. 

“How long?” 

James sighs. “Al–”

“How. Long.” 

“Two weeks,” James whispers. 

“How much of it has to do with Teddy?” 

Teddy jerks. Harry’s worried gaze finds him. James looks angry. “Al, he’s right there–” 

“And he wasn’t!” Al shouts. “He wasn’t, and you were and you didn’t relapse in the two years he wasn’t, but it’s been six months he’s been back and all of a sudden, here you are, slurring and looking like the corpse I thought I wouldn’t have to bury!” 

“Albus Severus–” 

“Don’t pull the full name stuff on me, Dad,” Albus says, holding up a hand. He’s usually so calm, his rage breaks like a hurricane over the ocean. “I am not sixteen and afraid of you grounding me. But when I was sixteen and scared of you grounding me, do you know what I had to see? My brother, high off his arse, giggling about nothing while everyone around him sobs and cries and tries to do better. And then he actually bothers to get better and I thought I wouldn’t have to see any of that again. But here I am, nineteen and exhausted and Jamie is”–he waves an arm and gestures–“here.” 

There’s silence in the room. James looks like he’s about to cry. Harry’s jaw is bunched and Teddy is frozen to the spot. 

“James,” Teddy whispers, because no one else has anything to say. “James, I’m so sorry.” 

“Eat your damn eggs,” Harry says and gets up. “Teddy, you’re coming to the kitchen with me.” 

Teddy swallows. Harry in a temper is a contained chaos verging on an eruption and Teddy is terrified. 

– 

“You know why Albus seems to think this is your fault.” 

Teddy sticks his hands in the pockets of his shorts and grits his teeth mulishly. “Because it probably is.” 

“Teddy,” Harry’s voice is soft. “Teddy, James is the one who took whatever he did. You didn’t feed it to him.” 

Teddy looks towards the microwave that operates without electricity, a merging of Muggle and Wizarding technology that Hermione has been advocating for and James has subscribed to passionately. “But I came back.” 

Harry tilts Teddy’s chin up and forces him to face him. “Tell me why you left, Edward.” 

It’s too much. Harry’s eyes, so painfully kind, the name Harry reserves for situations where he wants to convey the weight of his regard for Teddy, it all adds up and Teddy’s knees buckle. He grips the wall of the kitchen to stay upright. 

“We– I– James and I were… we were going out. For a bit. About a month, just after his nineteenth birthday. We were… happy. Or whatever, he was. I was terrified.” 

Harry’s tugs his lower lip between his teeth. 

“He told me he loved me and I panicked. And it was all too much and I thought about what you’d say and what Ginny would say and what Al would say and what the papers would say and everything was too much. So I left him a note and I came to you and I asked for the transfer. And you needed someone on the Finland case so it worked out and I–” 

Harry stares at him. _This is it_ , Teddy thinks. _This is the moment I stop being part of his family._ He’d been terrified of this moment, nightmares of how it’d go circling through his mind as he’d lain in his cold cot in the Finlandn mountains. Now, with Harry’s lips between his teeth and his expression stoic and steady, the pain of it seems dulled somehow. The knife edge is rusted and it still hurts, but the sharpness of the sting has been erased by the weight of his expectations. 

“You stupid boy,” Harry says and slams his hand down on the table beside them. Teddy jumps. “Edward Remus Lupin, you stupid child. You couldn’t think for once that you could maybe come talk to me about it? Me or Bill or even Draco, anyone Teddy. You could have just spoken to us.” 

“You knew,” Teddy says, the weight of the realisation crushing. “You knew. You told Albus that James told you three months after I left, you _knew_.” 

“My son came to me, looking like he hadn’t eaten in three days and asked me where I’d sent you, if I could give him the address. And I asked him why he hadn’t asked you when you were leaving. So he told me that you left without saying goodbye. And then he told me that he loved you and you didn’t love him back and cried until he fell asleep in the Head Auror’s office. I had a field day explaining that to the bullpen.” 

He’s gripping his hair, he knows, because the pain of it is a constant in every part of his scalp. He can feel the shift of the colours beneath his hands as his hair goes from red to blond to teal to a dusty brown that is a cross between his natural hair and something that doesn’t look as depressing. 

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Teddy says. “I thought you would think it was inappropriate and you’d stop loving me and I–” 

“How many sons do I need to reassure today?” Harry demands. “How many times do I need to convince my boys that I will love them no matter what?” 

Teddy lets out a watery, strangled laugh. “It’s weird when you say that. And I– that’s what everyone will say. I’m his god brother and I–” 

“Teddy,” Harry says, shaking his shoulders. “Teddy, I don’t know how better to explain that you’re being a bit of a daft bastard.” 

“Why?” Teddy asks hysterically. “What part of what I’m saying doesn’t add up?” 

Harry presses his fingers to his temple. “James never really looked at you like a brother,” Harry says, eventually. “You would come into his room during the holidays and he would go starry eyed just looking at you. And once I mentioned to him that you were his god brother when he was old enough to understand and he started crying. I think he was five. You’ve been his hero, Teddy, you’ve been his friend. And you’ve been his lover too and you need to pick which one of those you want to be because James would never let you be his _brother._ ”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Teddy says, clenching his eyes shut.

“These things tend not to.” 

“You’d be alright with us… dating.” 

Harry looks at him with sad, green eyes. “I would be alright with anything that made my boys happy, Teddy. I’d be more than alright.” 

“He relapsed and it’s probably because I came back.” 

“You know that’s not how substance abuse works. He didn’t simply decide one day that you were back and he needed to use. It builds up. And he refuses therapy so he doesn’t know what to do with it building up. Don’t blame yourself, just be there for him.” 

“What if he doesn’t want me to?” Teddy whispers. It feels like a betrayal, like the utterance of the possibility is a crime against his own person that he’s committing against his will. 

Harry looks at him as though he’s seeing him for the first time. “You’re in love with him too, aren’t you?” He asks, and with the way the words tilt up at the end, Teddy can guess that Harry is probably realising it for the first time. 

He nods, unable to talk as his throat aches, as raw and dry as sandpaper. 

“Then it’ll be alright.” 

As though it’s that simple. But then Harry holds out a hand to him and reaches up to pat him on the shoulder and cup his face and Teddy thinks maybe it is. 

– 

James’ hands are shaking when he reveals the loose floorboard in his bathroom and tugs it up in a practiced movement. With a wave of his wand the seemingly empty space is revealed to contain three packets of white powder and bottles of pills that Teddy hasn’t seen before. 

“Muggle money for Muggle drugs,” Harry says, pocket bulging with the stack of cash he confiscated from Jamie’s wardrobe. “Where’d you find them?”

“Old mate knew Squib folks,” Jamie mumbles, hiding his head in his hands. 

“Is this all?” Harry asks. James’ head swings up and the scowl etched on his face is uncomfortably familiar. 

“Don’t trust me, Dad?” He asks, voice mocking and a little derisive. 

“Not with this,” Harry says, without missing a beat. “Not with this at all.” 

Jamie holds the scowl for a few more seconds and then drops it, face taking on a resigned look. 

“There are pills in my bedside drawer,” he says without looking up. “Tell Al to find them.” 

All finds them. 

Harry asks him again. This time Jamie nods and looks so colossally exhausted that Teddy reaches towards him before thinking better of it and shoving his hands aggressively behind his back. 

Harry notices because of course Harry notices. 

“Al and I will be leaving now,” Harry says, looking at James, who’s staring dejectedly at the wooden flooring. “Give Teddy access to your contacts and let him handle it.” He pauses here, significantly and adds, “And then, for Merlin’s sake, _talk._ ”


	5. Chapter Four

Teddy sees Harry and Al out. Albus glares at him before softening it into merely a warning glance laced with reluctant affection and says, “Don’t run away.” 

Teddy cringes, but nods. Harry simply sighs and walks out. 

He wanders back to the bathroom, taking care to not trip over the overturned coffee table and finds Jamie in the same pose, hunched over and staring blankly at the floor.

“Jamie, let’s get back to the bedroom, you don’t look like you’ve had nearly enough rest.” 

“Already trying to bed me, Teddy?” James asks, and his voice is so dry it grates. 

“Stop,” Teddy says. “I just want to help.” 

James sighs. It’s loud and it sounds pained and Teddy wants to hold James to him, but he doesn’t know if the gesture would be welcome. 

“I’m so tired,” James says, after a beat. “So fucking tired.” 

“You’re probably dehydrated,” Teddy says. “Wait here, I’ll get you some water.” 

He turns to leave but James moves so fast that Teddy’s breath is punched out of him with the unexpectedness of having an armful of James Sirius Potter looking for all the world like a panicked puppy. “Don’t go,” he says, eyes wide and lips chapped. “Please.” 

Every fibre of Teddy’s being screams. His feet are rooted to the spot, eyes transfixed on Jamie’s face, body shaking with the overwhelming sensation of Jamie clinging to him. But James looks worse off, teeth pressing down hard enough to draw blood from his lower lip, fingers clenched in Teddy’s shirt. He looks terrified and wary and hopeless all at once. 

Giving him the time to move away, Teddy slowly raises his arms until he’s got Jamie cradled in them, pressed close to his chest. Jamie’s shuddering in the circle of his arms, looking absolutely wrecked and it’s all Teddy can do to not pull him closer and kiss him. Kiss away the pain, kiss away the tears, kiss away the fear that seems imprinted into the spaces between Jamie’s thoughts. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers into Jamie’s hair. “I came back. I’m here now, I’m not going anywhere.” 

“I woke up and you weren’t here,” James whispers, as though raising his voice will shatter the illusion that this moment is. “I woke up, and it was like all those years ago and Al was looking at me, full of pity and anger and sadness and I–” 

“I’m here,” Teddy says, desperation clinging to his syllables. “James, I ran, but I couldn’t stay away.” 

“You left me,” Jamie says. “You left me, you didn’t Owl, you didn’t text, you didn’t even visit. Why did you– I didn’t know where–” 

“Shh,” Teddy shushes when his words turn into a garbled string of incoherent mumbling. “Shh, I’m here now. Let me put you to bed.” 

James jerks away from his chest to look him in the eye. “Don’t let me sleep,” he pleads with earnest longing slipping off like tears from his eyelashes. “Don’t let me sleep, Teddy, because every time I wake up, you’re gone.” 

Teddy wants to slap himself, hex himself, slam himself into a wall. James, the star, James, the charismatic, undeniable charmer who smiles like a god and talks like the world belongs at him feet. That James is not meant to look like this, shattered and broken and pleading. 

“I promise I’ll be here,” Teddy says and Jamie sags against his chest. “I promise, I promise.” He presses a kiss to the top of Jamie’s head, another to his temple, another to the bridge of his nose. “Get some sleep, and then we’ll talk.” 

James stares at him, as though trying to unravel his mysteries, his heart, his very soul, trying to separate the lie from the truth in Teddy’s word. For his part, Teddy stares back, lays bare what he can of himself to James’ perusal, lets him drink his fill. 

“You’ll be there?” Jamie whispers at last, bringing his hand up to card through Teddy’s hair. “You’ll be there when I wake up?” 

Teddy nods. “I’ll be there. I promise.” 

After a few more seconds of intent staring, James acquiesces with a nod. Something akin to relief stirs in Teddy’s chest when James goes pliant in his arms and allows Teddy to carry him back to bed. 

As he watches the way James looks calmer, younger, more peaceful in his sleep, Teddy thinks that whatever remains between them may still be salvageable. 

– 

By the time James wakes up, it’s dark outside. The room is cast in shadow, the indigo of the dusk laden sky seeping into the darknesses surrounding the bed. Teddy watches him from the window, the way he twists and turns in bed, complaining a little as he struggles to get comfortable. He hadn’t been so restless the last time Teddy had shared a bed with him. He’d been comfortable then, curled into Teddy’s chest, breaths feather soft and lips tilted up in a contented expression even in sleep. 

Sometimes, the regret feels inseparable from who he is. 

James wakes slowly, like he always did, breath hitching and then eyes fluttering and then senses regaining consciousness gradually. He simply breathes in and out, eyes open in the dark, staring off the side of the bed. 

“Teddy?” He whispers, and the naked hope in his voice pulls on Teddy’s soul so hard that it’s almost as though a physical string is tugging on him, leading him back to the bed. 

“I’m here,” he murmurs, sitting down beside James, drinking in the way James looks at him, wide eyes and shallow breaths, as though he can’t quite believe Teddy is here. “I promised. I’m here.” 

James reaches up to touch one of Teddy’s eyebrows, tracing over it with a wondering finger. His expression is so innocently hopeful that Teddy reaches over and burrows a hand in his hair, just to ground himself against the strange sensation it ignites within him. 

“I was dreaming,” Jamie says. “I was dreaming you left.” 

“Not again,” Teddy says, bringing his hand down to kiss the palm. “Not now.” 

James sighs, draws his hand away. Teddy notes with a small spark of pleasure that he doesn’t object to Teddy’s ministrations, leaning into it a little. 

“You said we need to talk,” he says, voice muffled from beneath his hand. “Talk.” 

Teddy sighs. It’s too dark so he lights the night lamp. In this light, James looks like an angel, soft and flushed and sleep rumpled. It’s generous to him, washing out the way his cheeks are sunken, filling the shadows of his face with golden light. 

“You relapsed,” Teddy says, figuring there’s no point beating around the bush. “Why?” 

“You,” Jamie says bluntly before he reaches up to scrub a hand over his face. “Not you, sorry, that’s not fair.” He pauses, staring up at the ceiling and waves his hand in an expansive gesture. “It’s… everything.” 

“Tell me about it,” Teddy says, adamant. “And tell me how I factor into it.” 

“Once you left,” James begins, looking insistently at the ceiling, “Everyone expected me to relapse. Al was here everyday, once I told Dad, he invited me over for dinner every other day, Grandma started coming over randomly. They were all waiting, just waiting for me to slip and I was… I was so exhausted. I didn’t want to be that son, that brother, that grandson. And I… I figured you’d get to know. And I didn’t want you to blame yourself or think you had to come back just because I wasn’t doing so hot.” 

“You couldn’t pin your sobriety on my expectations for you and expect that strategy to succeed,” Teddy says. “That’s not how it works, Jamie.” 

James clears his throat. Laughs bitterly. “I see that now, don’t I? I wanted to be worth you coming back to, not some broken little kid you’d have to put together and expect the worst from. And then you came back and you were all smiles like you’d forgotten about us–”

“I never forgot,” Teddy feels the need to inject into the conversation vehemently. “I _never_ forgot.”

“Didn’t stop me from thinking you did. And then I got benched for a foul a month back. And the season ended and Coach was furious with me because the team couldn’t utilise its full potential. And then I saw a picture of mom and Blaise and it was a fucking nightmare because all I could think of was sixth year. And then one of my contacts texted me about some new drugs this bloke, Montgomery was coming up with. And that there were Aurors on his tail so it must be some excellent stuff.” 

James turns to his side, facing away from Teddy. 

“I didn’t want excellent stuff. I was so ashamed. So I converted half my paycheque to Muggle money and payed off a Muggle dealer.” 

“You need to give me those contacts,” Teddy reminds, as gently as possible. He abruptly feels as though he’s treading a landmine, one wrong step and all of this will blow up spectacularly in his face. He can’t bear the thought of James being collateral damage. 

James shrugs. “It’s on my phone,” he says. “I don’t have a password, you can open it if you want.” 

“I will,” Teddy says. 

There’s silence. When James speaks, his words come out rushed and abrupt, like he can’t bear the weight of them in his mouth long enough. “I don’t want to go to Cherry Hill.” 

“You relapsed,” Teddy says. “Harry can find another centre–”

“No,” James says, turning back towards Teddy. His eyes are fierce and his lower lip is trembling. “I’ve had enough of pastel walls and roommates who think meditation will help and green fucking fields and recuperative exercise and all that– I’m so sick of it.” 

Teddy thinks through the words. Blaise’s words from last night echo in his head, _nothing will work unless he wants it to._

“Okay,” he says at length. “I’ll talk to Harry and you won’t go back to Cherry Hill or anywhere else you don’t want to.” 

“But?” 

“But you do need to go to therapy,” Teddy says. “And stay in therapy. Not back out every time you think you’re doing fine.” 

Jamie stares at the ceiling, body tense. Eventually he breathes out, slow and quiet. And says in a voice that’s trembling with uncertainty but characteristically firm, “Alright.” 

– 

They have dinner on paper plates because James can’t stomach the thought of washing dishes and Teddy doesn’t really care. 

Teddy answers a text from Al that simply says, _‘?’_ with _‘still with Jamie’_ and pretends he doesn’t feel a little pleased at the smiley and heart he receives in response. The pleasure dims a little when it’s followed up by, ‘ _don’t fuck, talk_.’ 

As though he needs to be told. 

His conscience reminds him that his record thus far probably points to a trend that requires reminders and he doesn’t feel quite as uncharitable towards Albus as before. It’s James after all. 

James is scraping potatoes off his plate when he asks, “So when are you leaving?” 

“Tomorrow probably,” Teddy says, checking his watch. “I’ll stay the night, sleep on the couch or something–” 

“Not what I meant,” James says. He gestures between them. “I meant to ask when your little pity party for me is ending and you’re going back to pretending nothing happened between us and I was just a friend you fell out of sync with.” 

Teddy’s heart plummets. 

“Because I get it,” James says, looking away. “I saw myself in the mirror and I know why you’re still here, I do look pretty goddamn pathetic–” 

“I’m in love with you,” Teddy blurts out. 

In the ringing silence of the aftermath, he wishes he’d learnt how to keep his mouth shut. 

“What?” James says, enunciating it carefully, like he’s holding back the other words crowding around those four letters, that sharp syllable. 

“I left because I loved you too much and I thought being with me would ruin your family and your career and the newspapers are still hounding you and I just. I really fucking love you, Jamie, and I’m not here to throw you a pity party, I’m here because you’re hurting and I want to help you. Because you love me. And I love you.” 

“You’re telling me this two years too late because…?” 

“I just explained–” Teddy begins, exasperated, but James cuts him off. 

“Don’t bullshit me. My family and my career and the _Prophet_ , do you think I’m still nineteen and stupid? Face the fact that you’re terrified too. Finland was your heroin, wasn’t it?” 

Teddy looks away because the shame of the truth is too clear in his head and it must be clearer on his face. 

“Teddy,” James says, and he doesn’t sound angry, he doesn’t sound upset. He sounds pleading. “Teddy, don’t leave.” 

“I’m here,” Teddy mutters and wonders how true that can be when he can’t even look James in the eye. 

“You’re not, you’re shutting off. Teddy, _look at me_.” 

He can’t, he can’t because the words have broken a dam within him and now his feelings, his carefully compartmentalised existence is shattering and merging and flowing into each other like a swirling mass of colours until he can’t tell them apart anymore. They’re throttling him, choking him, bursting behind his eyes and he knows if he looks at Jamie, it’ll be visible on his face. 

He’s unprepared for Jamie climbing over his lap to crouch on the other side of the couch to look into his eyes. Whatever he sees in them makes James’ mouth drop open. 

“Your eyes,” he whispers. “Your _eyes._ ”

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and holds it up to Teddy and in the reflective black screen, Teddy sees the way his eyes are iridescent, otherworldly, as though he’s picked the feathers from a pigeon’s collar and woven them into his irises. 

_This is what you make me feel_ , he thinks. He only realises he’s spoken aloud from James’, sharp, hissed intake of breath and his wide eyes going even wider. 

Teddy regulates his breathing, shuts down his thoughts for a brief millisecond to bring himself under control. When he opens them again and checks the discarded phone on his lap, they’re fixed on the characteristic bluish grey that Teddy likes. 

“You– I–” James falters. “I never thought… I thought you left because you couldn’t face me.” 

“I couldn’t,” Teddy agrees. “But not for the reasons you surmised.” 

“I never thought you’d be here,” James confesses. “I never thought I’d see you this close again. Almost within…” 

_Kissing distance._

He remembers kissing James, remembers the soft magnetism of it, the way he couldn’t bring himself to pull away fast enough. Remembers the way James would keep his eyes closed for a few seconds after, remembers the pleased little smile that would burst through that he couldn’t keep down. 

He’s held on to it, cast Patronuses with it in the frozen terrain of Finland where the white cheetah of his thoughts would glide and gambol, a shard of shockingly human beauty breaking apart the ethereal monotony of the snow. 

He’s loved James for as long as he can remember. He doesn’t quite know when it segued into being _in_ love with him, but he doesn’t think it matters. Dear Merlin, he loves James _so much_. 

“What do you want from me?” James asks. It’s a simple question, so plaintive but Teddy doesn’t have an answer that doesn’t make him sound either uncertain or desperate. 

“Whatever you’re willing to give,” he says. 

James’ gaze drops down to his lips. “You know what I’m willing to give you,” he says. 

_Everything._

“Let’s take it slow,” Teddy says abruptly. He doesn’t know where it comes from, but the memories of falling into bed with James after a heated argument flash through his mind. They hadn’t done it right the first time, hadn’t spoken or been open. Teddy had been terrified and James had been halfway to hell in love with him. He knows he wants to do it right this time. “No sex, no fighting. Not now. Let me just–” He reaches out, arms outstretched, certain he looks patently ridiculous. “Let me just get to know you again.” 

James’ face goes through a complex rollercoaster of emotions, like a scene from a particularly expressive film. Disappointment cycling into thoughtfulness into joy into something calmer with an intensity Teddy wants to sink into and simultaneously jerk away from simmering beneath. He creeps delicately into the space between Teddy’s arms, resting his hands on Teddy’s chest and says, “I can do that.” 

Teddy smiles. They can do this.


	6. Chapter Five

They go to bed wrapped up in each other. 

They haven’t even kissed yet, but the warmth of James’ body beneath his palms, the sunny curve of his smile, everything is far too precious and somehow novel enough that the standard forms of intimacy cease to matter. 

He wants James, he realises, in more ways than he’s thought possible. He wants James pliant and talkative in his arms in bed, he wants James turned away from him and brooding in the kitchen, he wants James walking away from him to the bathroom, wants the knowledge that he’ll come back. 

He also wants to kiss and touch and make James fall apart under his fingers and mouth and body but it feels… balanced. Teddy himself feels balanced in a way he hasn’t felt before. Not when they’d started this, more than two years ago, young and stupid and high on the fumes of fast love. Not when he’d been chasing Dark wizards through abandoned fields and mountains.

Right now, James is curled into the crook of his neck, warm breaths fanning across soft skin, slightly too-long nails scratching patterns into Teddy’s biceps. 

“Tell me about Finland,” James says into the dark. 

“There isn’t much to say,” Teddy snorts. “It’s not like I went for a holiday. It was cold. I found factories full of illegal potions substances stocked up as part of the ring we were working on exposing. Once it was over, I came back.” 

“Only you would make a two year stay in a cabin in the woods sound boring,” James grumbles. 

Teddy snorts. “The cabin in the woods barely had any light and I spent practically the whole time studying case files by the fire.” 

“Did you miss me?” James asks. He tries to play it off as casual but Teddy catches onto the undercurrent of desperation in his tone. 

He contemplates the degree of honesty with which to answer. _All the time, I ached for you. I there myself into the case so I wouldn’t have to think of you and still I went to bed with the image of your smile behind my eyes._ “Everyday,” he says eventually. “Every single day, Jamie.” 

“Then why didn’t you write?” 

Teddy smiles ruefully up at the ceiling. “I thought you’d come find me if I did. Track the owl or reveal the address or pull some Jamie shit. And I couldn’t risk you landing up in Finland.” 

He receives a smack to his arm for that. “Tell me you wouldn’t, James,” he says, because he knows this man, he knows what lengths James can go to, just to prove a point. 

Jamie doesn’t say anything. Teddy peers down at him to find him smiling a little bashfully. “I probably would,” he admits, as though his love is something to be ashamed of. Teddy presses a small kiss to his shoulder, hoping it does what its meant to do. There’s a confession bubbling in the depths of Teddy’s soul, an outpouring of emotion he doesn’t quite have the words for yet, so these pecks, these chaste kisses and these words of comfort and care and the promises he can feel thrumming in his soul will have to suffice. 

“I missed you too,” James says into the silence. “Everyday.” 

“I’m sorry,” Teddy says, because he is. Because in some corner of his heart, he’d known what he’d be doing to James and had gone ahead and done it anyway. 

James shrugs. “You’re more… you,” he says. “Back then you were all over the place, trying to fit every piece of everyone you cared about into yourself. You’re calmer now.” 

It warms his heart in the way Finnish fireplace warmth never could. 

“And I would have to be particularly daft to complain about these,” Jamie adds, patting Teddy’s biceps appreciatively. “Apparently the cabin in the woods had a gym.” 

Teddy can’t help it, he laughs. “It didn’t,” he says. “It had an axe to chop firewood.” 

“That should not be as hot as you made it sound.” 

“It definitely wasn’t.” 

“Well, you could always show me how good you are with an axe and I can decide for myself–” 

“I don’t know if you genuinely meant an axe or you think that’s somehow a flattering comparison for my dick–” 

“Either way, it works out for me–” 

“You’re such a goddamn little shit, Jamie, I can’t _believe–_ “ 

“Godric,” James sighs, closing his eyes. “I love you so much.” 

A pause. A beat of silence. A hesitant mouth opening to take it back– 

“Me too, Jamie. So much.” 

– 

They go to breakfast because they can. Teddy doesn’t have to go to work till noon and James’ team doesn’t start practicing again until next month. When James suggests with a little frown of uncertainty that they should go for breakfast, Teddy agrees immediately and rejoices in the way James’ features smooth out into surprise and then happiness. 

They go to a little Muggle cafe close to Teddy’s place that Hermione had once recommended and order coffee with sandwiches and wait at a table by the window to be served. 

It’s a sunlit morning, and James is wearing a white shirt and jeans, looking better than he has in Teddy’s recent memory. He still looks tired and he’s still a little too thin, but the withdrawal hasn’t struck yet, nor have the cravings.

“That man,” James says, pointing out of the window to a bald gent wearing a garish red Hawaiian shirt with ill advised purple pants, “is a Muggle magician.” 

“How’d you know that?” Teddy asks, confused. 

“I don’t, I’m making it up,” James says, conversationally. “But he’s a magician. A starving magician. Those clothes belonged to his estranged brother who found out about his failing business and decided to send him a care package. Anonymous of course, but our magician would recognise those pants anywhere. On anyone. In any box.” The corners of his lips twitch. 

Teddy settles his chin on his palm and looks back to where the man is now having a heated conversation on the phone. “What else was in this care package?” 

“Old albums full of photographs from their childhood. Satin sheets. Chocolate chip cookies that are a little stale but Magician here appreciates the effort. It’s the thought that counts.” 

The waitress settles two plates down in front of them and shoots them an odd look before walking away. 

Eyes meeting across the table, both of them burst into laughter. 

– 

“When do you need to head back to work?” James asks. Teddy checks his watch to find it’s 11:05 am.

“About an hour, why?” 

“I was just wondering if you needed to pick up anything from your flat. You’re, uh,” he gestures towards Teddy, ears turning a little pink, “wearing my clothes.” 

Teddy looks down at his hoodie, another one with POTTER on the back and the grey sweatpants that James had thrown at him once he’d realised cargo shorts don’t make for adequate sleepwear. 

“So I am,” he says, smirking. “Unless you’d rather I not, it’s alright. I have a spare uniform back at the DMLE.” 

“And they’ll just let you saunter in looking like you’ve spent the night shagging the Golden Boy’s Tainted Son?” 

Teddy rolls his eyes. “We’re ‘friends’, remember?” 

“Are we?” James says, eyebrows shooting into his hairline. 

“Are we not?” Teddy asks, affecting petulance. “You wound me, Mr. Potter.” 

“Dear Merlin, don’t call me that,” he grimaces. “That’s Dad. Or Al, if he decides to become something where they tack on Mr. on the front for respect.” 

“Your father,” Teddy says, reaching up to tuck an errant strand of James’ hair behind his ear, “is Head Auror Potter. And you’re probably right about Al. But what does that make you?” 

James pretends to think. “Well, like I said, Golden Boy’s Tainted Son– oh wait no, this one’s better, Chosen One’s Tainted Son–” 

“James, I swear to Merlin–” 

“Rising Quidditch sensation, James Sirius Potter–” 

“Now you’re just spewing _Witch Weekly_ headlines at me–” 

“Oh, someone’s been keeping up with _Witch Weekly_ , I see how it is–” 

“Dear Salazar, James, _shut the fuck up_ –” 

“Make me–” 

And it’s too much, so Teddy kisses him. Just to get him to stop talking about the Chosen One’s Chosen Son or _Witch Weekly_ or whatever it is James likes to go on about that doesn’t make sense, that makes Teddy want to kiss him blind, that makes Teddy fall deeper and deeper in love. So he presses in, closer and closer, revelling in the satisfaction of it until he realises that he’s kissing James on a sleepy sidewalk in Muggle London, fingers twisted into the fabric of his sweater.

He’s _kissing_ James. 

The realisation is a little too much, a deluge of sensations and memories and repressed desires rising in him like a hurricane, so he opens his mouth in an involuntary groan, which gives James the perfect opportunity to slide his wickedly talented tongue that really has no business being quite that skilled into Teddy’s mouth. 

It’s deep, and it’s a little rough, a little brutal, as though they’re punishing each other for the time lost and the bad decisions in between, but overall it has the quiet sort of affection that they reserve for each other, broken keys of a piano healed, torn strings of a harp restrung. 

It’s everything Teddy could have hoped for, James soft and perfect underneath him, the air crisp and cool, the sunlight warm on his back. 

When they break apart, Teddy chases James just a little, whining at the loss of contact, fingers tingling with the urge to pull him back in. 

“I would take you home.” 

“I would let you.” 

But they stand there, amid the curious crush of passer-by's, smiling themselves stupid at each other. _We have all the time in the world_ , the smiles say. _You’re not going anywhere_.

“Goddamn I love you–c

“I love you so much–” 

They say it at the same time, the words sacred and special tangling around each other in the breath of space between them, the same confession in different voices dancing into a woven song in a melody achingly familiar, sweet as syrup and thick as honey. 

“Want to take a walk for forty minutes?” Teddy asks eventually, because the thought of letting James go before he has to has his whole body screaming in denial. “We have time.” 

It takes James all of two seconds of surprised delight to process the words before he says, “Of course.” 

Hand in hand, they step off the sidewalk to cross the street. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you are struggling, please know that you are not alone. I'm rooting for you just as hard as I am rooting for James.


End file.
